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Topic: Wood pizza oven design philosophy (Read 35538 times)

I have been studying pictures of wood burning pizza ovens to understand the design philosophy. Two features are paramount; the dome height and the location of the chimney. The dome height is also tied to the chimney.

The dome holds the heat from the fire as if you cupped your hands above a candle. This cupping effect can also affect the ability of the fire to breath. Something I have leaned from my barbecue pits.

The chimney location varies on the bakers taste. Some vent to the side or to the back to minimize the smoke being pulled across the pizza while others use the chimney to pull the smoke directly over the pizza for a smoky flavor.

Pizza or bread would probably be about it DKM. The nature of it makes for limited use. It will have a cooking area around 18"X 12" leaving the fire a space around 18"X16". I could reduce the size down by burning the fire in cooking area then cleaning it free of ash and then use the residual heat to bake pizzas with out a continuing fire. I would think you could bake several 9" pizzas considering the cooking time to be around 3 min each.

I am really into brick ovens. The first thing that is important is to build a round oven, with a spherical dome. It is efficient with wood, heats up fast and puts even heat down on your pizza. The next time you are in a wood-fired oven pizzeria, look in the dome -- it's very fun to watch the fire dance in the curved dome.

There are two types of dome height. The Naples oven is lower, while the Tuscan ovens are higher. The Naples style is said to be better for pizza, while the higher dome better for bread and roasting, but both really work well.

A front opening and vent is traditional, and works best.

The smallest oven you want to use is about 30" round. I put in a 26" oven once to test it out, and it was too small for the fire and pizza. Also, the opening was too large relative to the volume of the oven, so it did not hold heat well.

You can cook anything in a brick oven. We did Thanksgiving Turkey, Capon and roasts this holiday season, and they come out great. The retained heat cooks with moist heat (no fire in the oven), which cooks quickly, and lets your food stay moist. You can also grill inside the oven with a free-standing steel grill. Coals below, and heat above at the same time. Excellent.

We are collecting brick oven recipes and have posted a set a free plans to build a real Italian brick oven. Go to http://www.fornobravo.com. Click on the Pompeii Oven link. The plans and recipes are free, and there is a Yahoo! user group.

Take a look.FB

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Rob

Thanks James, I am trying to catch you here, you really are a round oven fan

I am little confused about which design I should go for. Luckily we have another 3 months till spring before building can actually start, I really want to have things clear coz the material is expensive work is involved and timely well the oven should be with us for ever and not to waste all the efforts

I am undecided which type of dome construction I should go 4. Is it important to have bricks closely on inside in round dome or holes can be simply filled with mortar? It is visible you have them all nicely in line, but I am not much skilled with bricks My work involves mostly research and office and this building is total challenge. By the way in ecology burning wood is exactly equal to leaving woods laying on the ground after damaging storm, disintegrating of these trees in time produces exact results. Downturn of burning in residential areas is more the asthma triggering particles in the air.

With my colleagues we have done another diagram test in regards of spacing inside the oven. Comparing same raised platform square floor at he back of the oven will give you 24% extra room, this is from the not circled corners so the space in non-round floor is kind of no doubt more useful!

After absorption in return the heat distributes by radiation within the oven and spreads across by natural law evenly. I would not worry about burning food if placed next to edge coz heat radiation is even everywhere across. Other case is ovens having heat source from electric heating element or gas flame, there is the heat sent from one point and not all round. Any problems there, I am more concerned about choosing right construction methods with fewer difficulties behind a corner.

Is it important to have bricks closely one to another on inside in the round dome or holes can be simply filled with mortar? Is the dome silhouette line actually calculated as arch so it is as you said “self-standing”??

I have two ovens in NorCal (in and out) and have installed ovens at both our rental houses in Italy. I feel like the Johnny Appleseed of brick ovens (leaving them behind).

There are three good reasons behind the Italian design (round):

1. The round dome is self-standing (ala the Duomo in Florence), so it does not need a lot of concrete clapping to hold it together. It is lighter and heats up much faster. A round oven will heat in an hour (or less depending on the type), where the heavier ovens take 2-3 hours, or more. That means you are burning more wood (which isn't good for the environment or your pocketbook). For me, the heat time is the difference between using my oven after work, or not. Round oven users fire their ovens a couple of times a week, and I know bread oven owners that never fire their ovens.

2. With a round oven you have room for your fire on one side, and food/pizza on the other side and in the back. It's all reachable. With a 32x36 rectangular oven, there isn't a good place for the fire. If you put it on the side, you have very little room on the side, and the back is lost. If you put it in the back, the fire doesn't reflect to the front of the oven. A 35" round gives you much more usable space than a 32x36. For all the effort you are going to be putting into this, a 32x36 rectangular oven is a one-pizza oven -- which is a shame.

3. The round, spherical dome does a better job of bouncing heat down to the cooking floor evenly. You can cook pizza everywhere (or roasts and veggies) in the oven, and it cooks evenly. That is how the high volume pizzerias cook all those pizzas. The rectangular oven has a barrel vault, which gives you hot and cool spots, depending where the fire it.

There are also little things, like clean up.

The downside is that you can only bake around 25 loaves of bread from a single firing, not 75. But for a home oven, that works for me. I make more bread than we could ever eat, and give lots away.

There are about a million pizza ovens in Italy, and they are all round. They also have bread ovens for pane cotta a legna, which are barrell vault ovens.

The bricks themselves at stacked on top of each other, so there are few/no mortar joints facing inside the oven. It also looks nice. Take a closer look at the plans, and photos of other builder's ovens, and (if you haven't yet) join the user group. It will be helpful, and we just posting a recipe for roasting a 20lb fresh ham!

Willi

Wood oven is what we want for our home. i work as production potter for 25 years and partly use own by group very large wood fired pottery kiln built by 8 maniacs 8 years ago ash does great stoneware glazes

i analyzed the popeii oven dome in fornobravo.com. In the dome section of the site they write “Do not allow space for a mortar joint, as you will be setting the edges of the bricks facing inside the oven flush with each other.” But from experience this is near to impossible task to make igloo dome properly on top not only “closing it” Every clay shrinks 10 percent after water is out, shrinking leave gaps between bricks fell on meat. I can not do such job i want meat! I do not want to cut bricks forever do it bad and loose half! Surely they do not talk about or show this huge problem to us people would say NO. It is not seen on pics the way new builders will notice, people will approach it in later time. THE impossible and difficult is covered with clay what do you do > you can buy ready made dome as well when oven is back to ground level. Smart website sell domes too > and i have base done > just refer to THE “Firenze oven” below the Pompeii.

Something else. Today and yesterday we cooked beautiful pizzas at our Italian friends, they actually preferred to build bread oven builders oven for pizza and not round. Before we were accompanied by French guys too, every one loved every one pizza.^-^

These are good points. We have had builders do all the cuts to make it fit, and we have had users pour a round "plug" from refractory concrete. Either would work.

Refractory oven kits are definitely faster and easier. I installed one, including the stand and stucco in one weekend. They are more than the bricks and mortar, but aren't crazy expensive. The two ovens cook identically. It depends on the owner and how they want to go about it.

I just posted some new photos of the brick work in the dome. Take a look:

We too make super pizzas in non round oven and it fires into 850F in one hour and less, We make pizzas for 45 minutes then cook and bake for hours, the oven has perfect even temperature. I don’t know what they thei talk about it like desperate. We fire our oven several times a week. Our neighbors use the same oven for 20 years, it looks pretty we went for the same shape as is much beter and lasts long, we had igloo before it didn’t last long and we did a lot for it. Just one point for beginners igloo brick domes they promot will not last long and are hard to do, it is well know about igloos just look around for your selves. Out of fashion.

Clogging forums. ALA long starters postings with many nonobjective and non backed misleading suggestions. aka one has to be careful what is behind every story when money$ involved. Pompei or ferenze ovens, someone must be joking! In 2005 people want stuff to last to save on energy bills, and not things going to fell down to rubble because making fundamental mistakes!!! But who cares....... as always. But hey, I think they just want to make me feel, and I can see not only me, that we did wrong for our selves. That’s not nice at all. LOL Thankx A

There were very few choices when I got into this a few years ago. And with all the energy that goes into installing an oven, I do think it is important that new builders try to get it right. That seems fair to me, as the options are quite different.

The plans are completely free and there is a happy community of folks building them. Sorry that I have upset you.

James

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Anna

James hi, I am not upset, but thank you. I am more neutral woman, learning from any mistakes as everyone can and relaying on experiences. Pizzas bread we made 5 years ago are not pizzas bread we make today. Thankx a

A proper neapolitan oven is the best tool to cook a pizza in it. Air circulation and direct heat are the best, notthing compared to another round oven and surely superior to a tunnel oven.

Aversa produce the best oven floor you can find, but they are not the best oven builder in or around Naples. The Master of them all was somebody called Mastro Ernesto (family name Agliarulo) who died 20 years ago. He builded the best ovens in Naples, among the others Trianon's and Port'Alba. The Trianon one for example was built in 1923 and it is still standing today and working beautifully. His two sons (now over 70's years old) are the best now, but they are really, really expensive.

Good points. I just got back from Naples and had a great time. I visited Molino Caputo, and we are going to be making it easier to get Caputo pizza flour in smaller bags. The flour is great. Also met Sig. Pace at Ciro di Santa Brigida and had a great pizza with Enzo Coccio, the pizzaiolo trainer. More to come on that. The Pizza Napoletana folks are committed to 60 second pizza and 900F ovens. Go longer than that and you dry everything out. There are about 1500 pizza ovens in Naples, and an oven typically lasts about 15-20 years. You can buy a Napoli-made oven in the states for about $20K (VPN certified no less).

If you want to build one, we have details on our web site. We also posted photos of a buffalo mozzarello ranch and producer. Lots of fun.

Close, but not quite right. Sig Coccio and Sig Pace come from different sides of the fence. Sig Pace's Vera Pizza Napletana is the business side, and associated with Ciro di Santa Brigida. Sig Coccio is independent. He runs the pizzaiolo training school and has very specifically stayed indepedent and unaligned. I think it's important to keep the facts straight as people's reputations do matter.

Caputo is respected by everyone.

A note on brick oven design for homeowners. You can build a Tuscan style oven without using internal forms. It's a lot easier to build, and unless you are a commerical pizzeria specializing in Pizza Napoletana, it's what you want. The oven dome is a little higher and the arch is more gentle. It's important to note that the Tuscan oven is not a mistake -- it's a style. It's the oven you see in many places in Italy, including my neighborhood in Tuscany. Some refractory oven producers specifically make both styles.

I am neapolitan born and raised. I have grown up in the city and I have many friends that are also indipendent (including Da Michele, largely reputed the best pizzeria in Naples)Enzo Coccia, is a member of the 2 associations, VPN and Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani. I am sure he is a very good pizzamaker and instructor, but his school is not indipendent.The pizza he teachs, as well as shown in the wood stone website, is the one of the disciplinare, which is the marketing version. The very Old Pizzeria in Naples, make pizza in a different way, particulary higher hydratation and longer fermentation.

The ovens of Tuscany or of other part of Italy, are designed to cook bread, no pizza. The difference is in the fact that bread is cooked without flame, while the pizza need both flame and heat circulation.

Antimo Caputo is a friend, and also a very prepared person. I cannot disclose at the moment the very interesting conversation we had on my research on Traditional pizza vs the disciplinare at the last NYC pizza show.

Unfortunately, I got some family business that just come up, so I won't have time to take pictures in this trip,but Il pizzaiolo made a pretty good service on the other post.

Take care evrybody.

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Su Meri

Forno Bravo is correct that Enzo Coccia is no longer associated with the VPN for many of the same reasons you have expresse pizzanapoletana. He thinks it is much to large and commercialized. Ask Antimo Caputo he can confirm since he and Enzo are very close.I recently took Enzo's course. Enzo was the greatest and never tried to sell me any product and if anything steered me away from the VPN.I know you are bitter about the VPN and I understand your concerns, but Enzo is not a part of their organization.Thanks for your help on the other board with the pizza peel, Antimo is sending me one.

Let's put aside the people that cannot reply for themselves (which is not right, and I apologies for my previous posts with Enzo Coccia and Antimo Caputo for that), could you discuss the pizza preparation you have learnt in Italy?

Is it any different form the Italian Ministry document that was submitted at the European parliament?